Regional council gets update on local hospital conditions

The heads of the region’s three large hospitals provided an update to regional officials on the state of the healthcare system on Friday, and despite a new hospital in the works, the current system is falling behind.

The region’s three hospitals have around 1,000 total beds, close to 10,000 employees and volunteers and see 229,000 outpatient visits, 197,000 emergency room visits and 55,000 surgeries per year.

Despite this, local healthcare leaders are sounding the alarm, saying the region is falling behind.

“We went through COVID-19. We collectively opened 200 beds, but even with that only brings us to the Ontario average – which is the lowest in the country,” said Ron Gagnon, president and CEO of Grand River Hospital.

Right now, the region is just below the provincial average when it comes to acute care beds, and well below the national average and behind other G7 countries.

While already behind, Gagnon pointed out, the crunch may get worse as two demographics put a squeeze on the region.

“Our community continues to grow at a pretty rapid rate and we are one of the fastest-growing and one of the fastest-aging communities in the country,” he said.

Currently, hospitals in the region serve a population of around 1.4 million people, and by 2046 that number is expected to grow to 2 million.

To meet that demand, the hospitals are working together to build a new, large hospital that is still in the planning phase.

Officials hope the new hospital can be finished in the next ten years.

In the interim, the hospitals say they have to get creative to find new bed spaces.

“In the next five years, this region needs about another 200 beds from a physical capacity standpoint, so what we are doing now is we are looking at different parts of our organizations that we can move to other areas, outside our spaces, to provide more room for beds,” Gagnon said.

The plan for the new hospital is to retire the St. Mary Hospital site, renovate the current Grand River and Free-Port site and build a brand new large hospital.

“By the end of this year we want to be in a position to identify the site for our new hospital,” Gagnon added.

The site for the new hospital has yet to be determined, but staff say the property needs to be at least 60 acres.

This means it will likely not be built in the core of any city, instead, it is likely to be built somewhere bordering the townships.